10/21/06 Mansfield Park

Mansfield Park (1999), directed by Patricia Rozema-watched w/ Leslie; VHS (borrowed from Leslie's Mom) @ home

Yet another Jane Austen adaptation, which we all know by now is going to involve some lovelorn spinsters, sexual innuendo and confusion, social class struggles, and prim & proper attitudes towards love, marriage and everything in between. Very very British if I do say so myself...and I do. From what I read (and I don't read the actual novels mind you, just the liner notes & movie reviews of the adaptations from said books) this is supposed to be Austen's most autobiographical book she wrote...but they're all pretty much the same aren't they? A young Fanny Price comes from very humble means & poor parents who can't afford another mouth to keep feeding is sent off to live at the estate of her wealthy aunt's husband...ahem, Mansfield Park (said with a very uppity-British-nasal cavity). Arriving at the very young & impressionable age of 10, you would think that young Fanny would be nothing short of elated to be in such a graduation of circumstances. Alas, our heroine here is whip-smart and able to displease her rich kin with the flick of the wit. Never quite fitting in to their regal ways, she becomes fast friends with her cousin Edmund...which will forever torment them with the blossoming of something more (that never can quite be in a British novel, everyone must suffer immeasurable pain & suffering to find love). Hello, its her cousin (yuck, even though he's not blood, it's still a bit wrong. However, as the fates of love and arranged marriage would have it...she is promised by her uncle to a wealthy neighbor Henry, who she provokes to prove his worth to be her suitor. This enrages the uncle, and Henry soon is going after Fanny's sister, and Edmund is lost in sexual angst with his lovely cousin, and oh boo-hoo. I'm so tired of the tiresome rigamarole that must be pursued in these period romances. Can't there just be casual sex, regrets, drunken apologies and celebrity stalkers to deal with this pent-up sexual frustration? Oh, and there's always poetry. Just avoid these silly song & dance numbers to your heartstrings...maybe the classic novels are just that and would prove me wrong if given half a chance at true romance. No, they're probably just glorified Fabio-golden-locks-laden Danielle Steele smut. Did I really just compare Jane Austen to Danielle Steele?

2 out of 5 stars